Sting in the Tail: Left Wing Futility (1989)

The Sting in the Tail Column from the July 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Left Wing Futility

Denis Canavan, Labour MP for Falkirk, is refusing to pay his £50 fine for not registering for the poll tax which came into effect in Scotland in April.

His response to a sheriff officer's threat to impound some of his property was to refer him to a 15 stone unemployed miner with two large greyhounds who will be looking after his house when he is at Westminster.

So eat your hearts out, you left wingers. Here's a guy who will take on the forces of the state without your workers' militia, barricades, etc. He only needs a man and two dogs. Of course Canavan knows there will be no aggro of that sort because the authorities can collect the fine plus expenses by simply arresting wages or freezing bank accounts and this is what the Labour controlled Central Regional Council have done with 130 people who haven't registered.

Canavan's show of bravado is therefore seen for what it is—empty political posturing, and there ought to be a fine for that.

Right Wing Duplicity

The much vaunted impartiality of the BBC and the ITV takes a severe knock when you discover the dirty tricks brigade that are involved in broadcasting.

In his book A Decade of Decline the author Peter Thornton tells us:

In September 1987 It was reported that MI5 tried to have Anna Ford, the broadcaster, blacklisted from the BBC in the mid-1970s on the grounds that a former boyfriend had once been a communist. It is believed that in that period local Special Branch officers recruited journalists in the BBC and ITV companies to pass on information about colleagues.

Economic League Stupidity

One of the more poisonous organisations in Britain today has got to be the Economic League. A crowd of creeps and snoopers who compile lists of workers that they consider to be subversive.

Active trade unionists, CNDers or just anyone who has taken part in any sort of demonstration or protest goes into their malevolent little black book.

Employers use this information to black list workers from getting jobs.

Attempts to legislate against this organisation were defeated in Parliament last year when a spokesman for the Home Office stated: "This organisation has been investigated twice - once by the Data Processing Register and once by the police. It is doing nothing illegal".

Michael Noar, director general of the League is reported recently as saying: "I agree that the political climate has changed. Class struggle is no longer an issue".

This piece of nonsense from the head snooper of an organisation whose sole reason for existing is to provide information to the bosses in their struggle against workers.

No class struggle? Tell that to the nurses, teachers, university lecturers and more recently the dockers who are engaged in this "non-existent" struggle.

Christian Lunacy

We learn from The Independent that a group of religious nut cases have recently been having a seminar to discuss such weighty matters as God's intervention in the affairs of we mere mortals.

Among the participants were the Archbishop of York, the most Reverend John Hapgood and the theologian John Polkingbourne.

One of the weighty matters given consideration by this learned body was prediction in science and J.R. Lucas illustrated the strength of Christian philosophy when he stated:

... it might have been reasonable for him to say an hour before that he was going to give this talk, but he could not have known he was: I might instead have become an existentialist, flown to Paris, and mounted an art exhibition in a public lavatory.

But if you think he was a star turn . . . he doesn't hold a candle to some of the other plonkers.

Much time was spent discussing parking spaces. This may seem odd, but one member of the group had been much exercised by a priest he'd heard on the radio who claimed that when he was in a hurry to a meeting in town God would always find him a parking place.

But for our natural compassion for the workers in Paris, going for a leak, we would wish Lucas and the rest of his Crazy Gang had flown to Paris and held their seminar in a public toilet.

Best place to talk crap!

The Logic of the Market Place

Futility, Duplicity, Stupidity and Lunacy: perhaps you think we exaggerate the shortcomings of capitalism?

Well how about this piece of information from The Glasgow Herald (17 May):

Brussels bureaucrats are destroying mountains of fruit and vegetables worth tens of millions of pounds. Figures released yesterday show the EC spent £67m getting rid of fruit and vegetables in the four months up to February this year.

Who is to blame for this shameful situation? The Glasgow Euro MP Janey Buchan has no doubts about the matter.

Mrs. Thatcher should stop trying to browbeat everybody else and help to find a way of getting this food free of charge to the people who need it.

What crass hypocrisy from a member of the Labour Party!

Does she imagine that the Labour Governments of Wilson and Callaghan favoured the free distribution of food? Does she imagine that a future Labour Government headed by Kinnock would do so? His recent praise of the market economy should leave no one in any doubt on that score.

Everything inside capitalism is produced for only one purpose - to make a PROFIT!

People starving while food is destroyed is the logical outcome of a society based on production for profit.

Only inside a socialist society can you have the free distribution of food. 

The Labour Party illusion (1964)

From the July 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the coming general election the Socialist Party will be contesting two seats. We will be standing in opposition to all other parties, Conservative, Labour, Liberal, Communist. Nationalist, and the like. When we contest elections we put only one issue before the working class—Socialism or Capitalism. We only seek the support of those who wish to have Socialism now.

We hold that a Socialist party must base its policy on a recognition of the class struggle which goes on between the working class and the privileged owning class. It must not compromise with other political parties which, because there can only be one Socialist party in any one country, only stand for Capitalism in one form or another. This is why we arc opposed to those parties, like the Labour Party and the Communist Party, which claim to stand for Socialism.

Although we don't regard these parties as Socialist and hold that they stand either for a reformed Capitalism (Labour) or State capitalism (Communist), we do recognise that they are in a way different from the Liberals and Conservatives. These openly proclaim that they stand for Capitalism. The Labour Party does not; it claims to be a party of the working class.

Under Capitalism there is inevitably working class discontent. The more politically conscious workers organise to seek a redress of their grievances. But as long as they are not Socialists, no matter how “ radical" they may be, their programme will be one of capitalist reform. They will form the "left-wing" of capitalist politics. This was the origin of the Labour Party; it was the party of working class discontent, vaguely protesting against the effects of Capitalism but having no understanding of their causes. “Labourism " preached the need for a Labour government which would somehow be different from a Conservative or a Liberal government. Liberals and Conservatives could not be expected to sympathise with or understand the workers, it was argued, but a Labour government would be different This belief was based on the assumption that Capitalism could be administered in the interests of the working class.

The experiences of the first two Labour governments should have shattered this delusion, but there was always the excuse that they were in office but not in power. There was no such excuse in 1945. Once installed, the new Labour government settled down to the task of running Capitalism. This inevitably brought them into conflict with the working class. Thus we found them using troops as blacklegs, prosecuting strikers and, in the end. trying to impose "wage restraint" and a " wage freeze" on the ground that wage increases would harm exports. Their foreign policy was based on protecting the overseas interests of the British capitalist class. To help them in this task they continued conscription and began production of the British nuclear bomb. As far as the working class were concerned there was little difference between this Labour government and previous Conservative ones. Their attempts to get higher wages were, as always, resisted. As before they were sent abroad to die defending the interests of the British capitalist class.

At the 1951 election the working class threw out the Labour government. The Labour Party had failed to produce Utopia. What changes they had made left the position of the working class much as it had been before. Once again experience confirmed our analysis that a Labour government would be no more able to solve working class problems than would an avowedly capitalist government.

The fact that the Labour Party failed did not mean that its leaders were consciously dishonest. It just meant that their theories of how Capitalism worked were wrong.

The Labour Party believed, and still believes, that social problems can be solved piecemeal—first defence, then housing, then redundancy, and so on. This again is a delusion. The social problems of Capitalism—bad housing, boring work, lack of educational opportunities, increasing crime, increasing mental illness, shoddy goods—arise from the fact that the workers do not own the means of production. This means that these problems cannot be solved within the capitalist system. Attempts to alleviate them will fail, for no sooner is one aspect cleared up than another appears.

There are many examples of this. In housing the answer to exorbitant rents was thought to be found in Rent Control. This affected the problem temporarily, but it has led to another; as a result of Rent Control the landlords have neglected their property so that today a major aspect of the housing problem is how to renovate decaying houses. One of the measures the last Labour government introduced was dividend restraint This led to a situation where companies had large reserves and low share values. As a result some time later, amid Labour protests, there was a spate of takeover bids. Then again, the Street Offences Act has merely led to the spread of the call girl racket. Trying to alleviate Capitalism's social ills is like doing Sisyphus' task. No sooner do you roll the stone to the top of the hill than it rolls back down again.

In recent years a change has come over the Labour Party. After losing three elections on the run the party decided that old-style Labourism was out of date. The image of the Labour Party as a backward-looking trade unionist party had to go. It was to be replaced by that of a modern, progressive, radical, national, dynamic, scientific, party. This change means that the Labour Party now accepts the capitalist system without qualification. It is the end of the road for "Labourism." At one time the Labour Party could be said to hast had some principles even though they were hopelessly mistaken. Once it had a vision of a New Society. It had a strong pacifist and anti-militarist tradition. This is no longer so. Today the Labour Party is one of the two great electoral machines competing for power against the background of the capitalist system. It is Tweedledum to the Conservatives' Tweedledee.

Mr. Wilson and his colleagues can hardly wait to get into office. But this time their party will not be coming to power as an avowed workers' party but as a party determined to stand no nonsense in its attempts to modernise British capitalist industry. It is unlikely to look with tolerance on unofficial strikes and restrictive practices. It is likely to impose an “incomes policy"—in other words, wage restraint. The wording class have nothing to gain from backing the Labour Party. But they can't say they haven't been warned what's in store for them.

Adam Buick

Sri Lanka divided (1986)

From the August 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Until quite recently the island of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) was known in Britain, if at all, only for its tea and, perhaps, for its natural beauty. That was all until about two years ago when Sri Lanka began to claim the attention of the media because of a series of brutal killings and bombings by Tamil separatists and an equally barbaric response by government security forces.

Sri Lanka has a total population of 16 million people. The majority are Sinhalese (predominantly Buddhist), but there is a significant minority of Hindu Tamils who make up 12.7 per cent of the population living mostly in the north and east of the island. The Tamils were brought to Ceylon (as it was called before independence from British colonial rule) from Tamil Nadu, in the southern part of India, as immigrant labour to work the tea plantations.

In 1956 the first Prime Minister of the newly independent state, Bandaranaike, responded to pressure from the pro-Sinhalese Buddhist clergy, who had supported his political campaign, and made Sinhala the official language at the expense of Tamil. This move, symbolic of the exclusion of the Tamils from mainstream Sinhalese society, sowed the seeds of contemporary Tamil separatism. A year later, in an attempt to defuse Tamil anger, Bandaranaike signed a pact with Tamil leaders granting a number of concessions. This aroused opposition from the majority Sinhalese community who, provoked by Jayewardene (now President), protested that Bandaranaike was being too soft on the Tamils.

Even at that point it was beginning to be clear that the "Tamil problem" was an issue that could be exploited by political leaders for their own opportunistic ends. Now, because of the increasing levels of violence being used by the Tamil separatists, Jayewardene is having to offer greater concessions than those offered by Bandaranaike. And now it is the opposition led by Bandaranaike's widow that is stirring up nationalist Sinhalese opinion against him for not being tough enough towards the Tamils.

Jayewardene, leader of the right-wing United Party, came to power in 1977; he altered the constitution, elevating himself from Prime Minister to President and remained in office by calling a referendum not an election. So until 1989 when a general election is due, Jayewardene will not have to put his career on the line.

Within the government itself there are some, notably Finance Minister de Mel, who favour a more conciliatory approach to the Tamils. But again political opportunism is the motive rather than any genuine belief in the Tamil cause. The Sri Lankan economy is in a state of collapse; a quarter of the total budget is being spent on the war (about $1 million a day); tourism, an important industry for the island, has been badly affected by the violence. None of this is likely to do much to enhance the Finance Minister's career prospects. On the other hand the National Security minister. Athulathmudali, advocates a much harder line against Tamil violence. But then he would, since he derives most of his political support from the expanding security forces who, like de Mel, also favour the "military solution" to the Tamil problem.

Meanwhile, as politicians of both main political parties adopt the pose that they think will win them the most support at the polls, people from both groups are being brutally murdered and maimed. Over the last two years the Tamils have increased the level of violence which is often directed at Sinhalese workers and peasants. In retaliation there have been allegations of brutal reprisals against the Tamil community by the security forces. Most of the violence has taken place in the north and east of the island. The Jaffna peninsula in the north, where the Tamils constitute a majority of the population, is effectively controlled by Tamil guerillas and the army is engaged in an attempt to regain control of the area. In the eastern province there is an almost equal ethnic mix of Sinhalese and Tamil. Because it is the Tamils' aim to have a separate state in the northern and eastern provinces, they are trying to drive the Sinhalese out of the area through violence and threats. Meanwhile, they claim that the government has been forcibly resettling Sinhalese peasants in Tamil areas. Neither side wants to forfeit this area of Trincomalee since it contains a harbour, a vital strategic asset. The government could not, therefore, consider giving it up in any future autonomous Tamil province and the Tamils say that their state could not be viable without it.

If the leaders of the main political parties are trying to make political capital out of the ethnic divide, then so too are the Tamil separatist leaders. Part of the aim of the violence has been to persuade the international capitalist class that the war in Sri Lanka is getting worse so that they will cut back aid and investment. Jayewardene, in the meantime, is trying to persuade the same financial interests that there are good prospects for peace as a result of negotiations with Tamil leaders in Delhi and the offer of some devolution of power. However, he treads a thin line. If he appears to be conceding too much then he will be accused of selling out the Sinhalese community. If he doesn't concede enough, the violence will continue with the risk of further economic disruption.

That the Tamils have been treated as second class citizens and denied equal political and economic rights seems undeniable. But what is equally true is that unscrupulous politicians from all sides have used the potential for conflict that was always latent among the island's population for their own political ends. Competition between the two ethnic groups has been encouraged; cultural and linguistic difference has been exaggerated; and religion too has been used to fan the embers of hatred between the two communities. To advance the careers of a handful of members of the ruling class, workers and peasants have been set against each other, fighting over an island that does not belong to either the Tamil people or the Sinhalese, spilling each other's blood and killing each other's children in a conflict in which they have no interest.

Janie Percy-Smith

Editorial: The street where you live (1982)

Editorial from the December 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

The most famous, instantly recognisable, thoroughfare in the world is probably not Piccadilly or the Champs-Élysées but Coronation Street. Stand any visitor from abroad in a narrow, serried street of Victorian red brick homes and they will excitedly know it — will know that all working class life is there. It was in some forgotten flash of brilliance that the name was born, juxtapositioning as it does a great festival of ruling class privilege and dominance against the harsh lives of the dominated, unprivileged people of Coronation Street.

But of course there are real life places called Coronation Street; it is no uncommon thing, for the ruling class to celebrate in this way. In Britain, military victories are marked, not just by raising statues and memorials but also by places like Trafalgar Avenue. Waterloo Road. The memories of the more notable politicians — notable because of a particular ability to mislead the working class — are enshrined in concentrations of workers’ dwellings bearing names like Churchill House, Balfour Road. (There is a complex of flats in London, which quickly became odorised with working class poverty and despair, where each block is named after some hero of the post-war Labour government.)

Then there are roads which are named to mark workplaces there — the places where workers from the red brick terraces attend each day to submit to their own exploitation. Thus we have such as Laundry Road, Distillery Way, Copper Mill Lane. Someone who travels each day from their home in Churchill House to work in Laundry Road, returning in time to switch on Coronation Street, should be in no doubt as to where they stand in the class order of present day society.

Naturally, there are no streets named after things which the ruling class would prefer to forget; none named after failures and defeats. There are no Blitzkrieg Avenues on the town maps of Britain; there is no such place as Horatio Bottomley House in memory of that arch twister (but very effective recruiting agent). Thus we are encouraged to believe that capitalism provides cause only for celebration and congratulation, that it is an unbroken process of triumph and enterprise.

A most recent example of this comes from Manchester, where a newly converted block of flats now glories under the title of Falklands House. In that city of sooty relics of Victorian capitalism, they have not forgotten how they should mark the system’s grisly history. “We thought”, said the estate agent “we'd like to honour the lads." The owner of the flats was less discreet: “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

And so it was. And so are all the others — Churchill House, Laundry Road, Coronation Street ... In themselves they are all continual reminders that we live under a social system in which a minority- class monopolises the means of life and that the rest of us are allowed access to those means only on the terms of being exploited for the profit of the minority. They remind us that capitalism is a society of divided interests and of unnatural national boundaries, each one encompassing a ruling class whose national interests are opposed to those beyond their frontiers. Capitalism's wars are not triumphs to celebrate, but the bloody execution of conflicts between one owning minority and another. They impress on all workers that capitalism is a society of class privilege, in which socially redundant parasites enjoy massive wealth and symbolise their dominance in opulent consumption and in crass, archaic rituals.

It would be more appropriate to call those places Famine Street, or Exploitation Road (for the industrial estates). Mendacity Way (for Westminster, Whitehall and the like). Privilege Park (for the pricier parts of the city). These names would symbolise that capitalism is organised repression, murder and destruction.

Socialists do not just stand against that social system. We do not condemn capitalism as an immoral interlude in history; we analyse it as a necessary, developmental episode in human progress. Each social system ends as the social relationships it imposes become out of alignment with its developing production of wealth. This crisis can be resolved in only one way — by a revolution to basically change the social relationships.

Capitalism has fulfilled its historical role, and its social relationships now act as a restraint on the forces of production. In this past year, typically, tens of millions of people have starved to death while tens of millions were taken out of the productive process because it was not profitable to keep them there. In contrast, socialism’s production will be patterned on human need; there will be no restraints on it apart from natural ones. Socialism will be a society of abundance and freedom, when human beings will co-operate for the common good.

The case for socialism is overwhelming and it is everywhere around us — in the pain and disease and fear of capitalism, in the shops and the factories and the offices, in the pubs and even on the street where you live.

Division in the I.S. (1976)

From the February 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The organization which miscalls itself International Socialists has become a casualty of the system which it claimed was in the last process of decay. They unfortunately buried capitalism before it was dead.

This self-styled ‘revolutionary spear-head’, within the short time of its existence (1960) has done incalculable damage to the genuine Socialist cause. At a time when clarity and explanation and patience was needed, they spread confusion. There is not one original idea in their battery of arguments and policies that has not plagued the working class movement in this country for over 75 years. Advocacy of the General Strike; smashing the state; repudiation of the Parliamentary method as a means to Socialism; the cult of leadership and support for every type of industrial activity, as well as being utterly steeped in reformist policies.

The present split, with the expulsion and loss of membership, is alleged to be because the Central Committee was autocratic and intolerant of ‘grass roots opinion’. What else can you expect in an organization based on leadership? The Guardian (12.1.76) quotes an expelled member as saying ‘ . . . the leading theoretician Tony Cliff—[our italics—God help us] and founding member assumed a messianic exclusiveness of doctrine which he believes encapsulates historic truth . . .’ In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king and it is depressing to learn that this muddled ‘intellectual’ still persists in spreading confusion disguised as revolutionary tactics.

The real reason the I.S. has split is very old. An opportunist organization which plays politics by ear and has slogans instead of principles, emotional appeals instead of argument, may have a certain appeal to the unthinking. But events have overtaken them. The militant I.S. shop stewards are being rejected by the workers because capitalism is in a depression and workers want to keep their jobs. They fear that industrial unrest may close a factory or give the employers an excuse to clamp down on working conditions. In that case, the militant is an embarrassment.

In the field of reformism, militancy and pressure groups are irrelevant if the intentions of the capitalist are flatly against social reform. After all, the capitalist has to pay for reforms and it is his judgement and timing which count.

The instant reformer will never learn. Unsound on basic theory, religious in their approach to historic development and arrogant in their contempt for the workers’ thinking capacity, they believe that the intellectual few can lead the great mass of ignorant workers to socialism. But their concept of revolution is based on getting control of the political machinery without a mandate for Socialism. That is without a recognition that only by patient discussion and argument can workers be persuaded to get rid of their ideas of dependance on a wages system and the institution of buying and selling and that society is run by a force outside of themselves.

The path to Socialism is difficult but not impossible. The split in the I.S. has brought forward another organization—The International Communist League and another mass party has been promised for the autumn —The Socialist Workers Party. These will just as surely go the way of their parent. Founded on Trotskyism which they have never abandoned, these anti-cammassars have learnt nothing. They all support the big battalions of social reform—The Labour Party although it is fashionable to pretend that they are further to ‘the left’. They are nothing of the kind. They wish to take over the role of the Communist Party—another worshipper at the Labour shrine—in the Trade Unions. What a sad commentary when so-called revolutionary organizations have to depend on the shifting sands of industrial support. The SPGB is a revolutionary movement in its own right, completely independent from any outside influence. We don’t rely on trade union support or demands for reforms or any other outside influence. Our Party will not split, because its members agree on the major principle—that is that Socialism cannot be established with out the working class understanding its implications and the necessity of political action.

The I.S. and other misguided people who live in a world of euphoria where facts play little part, want to bring forward the social revolution by a series of short cuts. They are well-intentioned but disembodied creatures who present a positive danger to Socialism and the quicker they realize this the better. You may try to abort the social revolution before the period of class consciousness has developed but as everybody knows instead of bringing forth a healthy child you get a monster.

Jim D'Arcy

Sting in the Tail: Winners . . . and Losers (1990)

The Sting in the Tail Column from the July 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Winners

"If only we could bottle the feeling - the desire to be rich." This was Seb Coe, Olympic athlete and prospective Tory candidate, speaking at the launch of National Motivation Week (The Guardian 15 May).

The aim of NMW is to encourage all of us "losers" to become "winners". Among the supporting winners present were football managers Steve Harrison (recently sacked by Watford), Alan Ball and Lennie Lawrence (whose teams have just been relegated), and Lou Macari (on bail accused of tax offences).

But suppose we all did what those behind NMW want us to do and became winners. Has it never occurred to these dimwits that capitalism can only function if the vast majority, the losers, are so poor that they must sell their ability to work for a wage or salary?

Losers

The financial world of insurance underwriters is a bizarre place. While Mrs. Thatcher warns us that we must stop claiming higher wages and that standards of living must be related to profit, we learn:

"You can feel a little bit isolated", mused Richard Outhwaite the Lloyd's insurance underwriter last week. Anyone who has notched up £200M worth of losses - and still counting - in the course of running a business is bound to feel somewhat lonely.

The Independent 29 May

Mr. Outhwaite has fallen victim to the uncertainties of the market. In the early 1980s he took on some of Lloyd's potential liability claims. At the time it looked like good business for his clients, but capitalism being capitalism it all turned out disastrously.

Mr. Outhwaite's "a little bit isolated" may seem somewhat philosophical in the circumstances until you learn that his fall from grace will not hurt him all that much.

He is a man who is personally financially secure with large houses in Oxfordshire and Scotland.

It is always easier to be philosophical when the £200M loss is someone elses!

Right Priorities (1)

Anyone who thinks that socialism will be too difficult to achieve and that tackling problems within capitalism is more realistic, should have watched "The Big Heat" on BBC1 on 21 May.

This Panorama programme dealt with global warming and the catastrophe this will bring to planet Earth. It also dealt with the progress the world's governments are making to deal with this problem.

Surely here is a problem which they can all agree must be tackled swiftly and decisively? What a hope. The US government is more concerned about the effects which stern action against carbon dioxide and other harmful gasses would have on the US economy.

For example, the automobile, coal and chemical industries would suffer badly, and just think of the resulting unemployment and (shudder) lost votes. The US spokesman who was interviewed saw the call for drastic action as a European plot to weaken the US economy!

What about the underdeveloped countries? They stand to lose most from global warming so aren't they keener to take action? Afraid not, because they insist that they must industrialise even more if they are to help their starving, homeless millions.

We have never thought that achieving socialism will be easy, but compared to getting capitalism to outlaw global warming at the expense of profit and power, it should be a push-over.

Right Priorities (2)

George Bush has restored China's "most favoured nation" trading status which was withdrawn after the massacre of the students last year in Tiananmen Square.

He defended the move on the grounds that it would:

continue to promote the reforms for which the victims of Tiananmen gave their lives.

The Guardian 25 May

Isn't that a noble sentiment? No, because he then revealed that it was all to do with profit and votes as usual:

China buys about 6 billion dollars of American aircraft and wheat, chemicals, lumber and other products. Lose this market and we lose American jobs - aircraft workers in the West, farmers in the Great Plains, hi-tech employees in the North East.

The slimy hypocrisy of its politicians always was one of capitalism's most loathsome features.

Housing Problem (1)

The newspapers are fond of telling us about the "Housing Problem". According to them there are just not enough houses available.

Anyone who believes that should note recent developments in London's Docklands, reported in The Independent 29 May.

Housebuilders have been hit by a new slump in London's Docklands as buyers pull out of "special offers" deals. Only 130 out of the 1,600 new homes on the market were sold in the three months to April according to the research group DP3.

 So why is it we have a housing problem when the sellers are so desperate to get rid of the houses that they are offering all sorts of special offers?

The answer of course is that there is NO housing problem; it is a poverty problem. If you have enough money you can have a house tomorrow; if not - tough!

Housing Problem (2)

Since the end of the second World War we have had several Labour governments, all of which have set out confidently to solve the "housing problem".

Now scenting a possible future governmental role, the Labour Party have released a draft consultative document "A Strategy for Housing". True to form they are going to "solve" the problem again.

Before the homeless start dancing with joy however, it is worthwhile to note that previous Labour governments have failed miserably to address the problem.

Away back in July,1946 a more confident Labour government had its spokesman, Aneurin Bevan predicting;

When the next election occurs there will be no housing problem in Great Britain for the British working class.

We confidently predict that if and when we have a Labour government, and they in turn have been turfed out of office, there will still be a working class poverty problem posing as a "housing problem'.

William Morris

The Socialist Party will be publishing shortly an important new pamphlet, How We Live and How We Might Live by William Morris, with a Modern Assessment.

It is the perfect antidote to the poison of all those discredited left-wingers with their futile plans for reforming capitalism. It stands uncompromisingly for the new wageless, tradeless future.

To the cynics who carp about the difficulties of convincing the working class of the need to organise for a new socialist society, there is no better rejoinder than that of William Morris quoted in the Modern Assessment part of the pamphlet:

One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman; two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and why only a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon the earth? You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question.

In the workplace . . . (1984)

From the August 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

The alarm goes off, it’s 7 am and I know the nightmare is not yet over. I desperately want to stay in bed but drag myself out and again get through the normal routine in preparation for another day's wage slavery.

My lift is waiting down the road, my “chauffeur” buys the Sun every morning, so I open it up as usual. The pre-packaged opinions glare at me in huge print in between pictures of uninteresting idols and unwanted "news" about who they've had affairs with lately. My friend informs me that he "only buys it for the wife". As he has seen me read the occasional Financial Times at work, he has explained that he really reads the Daily Telegraph at home.

From my desk, penned in for another day, I can see the company cars lined up. the MD's Audi nearest the entrance, next the under-Manager's car and so on strictly according to hierarchy. The car parking spaces are rigidly adhered to and the poor, unsuspecting rep who parks his car in one of them is in grave danger and can, on return from lunch, expect to be subjected to verbal abuse and threatening behaviour. When a new wonder-machine is being delivered. the prospective recipient has to hover patiently in the corridor, like a child at Christmas, until the MD has approved the purchase. A flash car is the outward expression that a salesman has done well, the prospect of a new, more up-market one next year is the carrot for working harder, for putting in unpaid work at the weekends without complaint, for smiling and being pleasant to overseas visitors he can't stand the sight of.

Most of my fellow workers are constantly chasing the next appliance on the road to gadget paradise. They never quite get there but it is glittering seductively just out of reach. Perhaps happiness to them is when they acquire a kitchen extension, a better car, new carpets, a bigger house, bigger mortgage, bigger debts. The more the debts increase, the more they need to keep their jobs, to conform, to turn up on time, show willing, have the right ideas. More often than not they look harassed rather than happy; one suffers from sleeplessness, others need tranquilisers.

I've tried explaining that because they are all working class and in the overwhelming majority, they need not put up with this kind of existence, after all. our class produce all the shoddy goods they always need to replace, make sure they are distributed, plan the sales campaigns—run society from top to bottom. But after four years of constant mental strain to get this point of view over, some still think I am describing some sort of "Russian system”, others say “it would be nice were it not for human nature", not to mention the worker who told me that "work is not the place for this kind of deep, political conversation", then obediently lowered his head over his boring delivery schedules.

Young female members of staff have to endure sexual harassment—always just within the limits of decency. Thinly veiled suggestions like “how good are you at it” or “you are looking hot this morning" abound and men stand as close as possible to explain a piece of work with hands longing to touch. The men are too worried about their "stable” marriages to play so close to home; better wait till next time they are on a business trip. The wives at home wait for their next anniversary card and seem satisfied with being no more than Mrs. with their husband's initials in front of the surname.

The sad thing about this kind of behaviour is not the existence of sexual feelings but the hypocrisy and frustration which surrounds sexual relations under capitalism. The sexual act with a prostitute, whether she/he is bought on the streets or in marriage, is divorced from any real feelings for another person and a lot of unhappiness results from it. This kind of treatment of women in workplaces need not be a result of sexual desire but how the macho male is expected to behave as well as a way of “keeping women in their place”, constantly reminding them that they are really only good for one thing and must not aspire to senior positions. Of course, reinforcing the traditional view of women does tend to lessen competition for men.

As I settle down to yet another day’s tedious slog over the typewriter, I know that most of the other workers here consider themselves to be "middle class", basing this self-satisfied assessment on the assumption that they are "educated" (have come out of one end or the other of the sausage machine), that they are "buying their homes” (are in debt to building societies) and enjoy taking business contacts to pretentious hotels and restaurants. Even so, they are acutely aware that their little privileges could easily disappear should they lose their jobs. However, this does not seem to lead them to the conclusion that they are members of the working class dependent on selling their labour- power to an employer for a living, just like the factory workers next door. Apart from the working class, there is only one other class in society, the employing class or capitalists. The capitalists may or may not work; the essential difference between them and the working class is that they have the choice.

Really big worries at my place of work, apart from whether next month's salaries are going to be in the bank on time, are things like choosing the "right" bottle of wine when carrying gifts to “superiors” and whether their wives really know how to “entertain” at dinner parties. When extremes of idiocy take place, as when one worker brought a TV set in to watch the return of Prince Andrew and the boys from the Falklands, I have felt there is a real need for the firm to make an urgent investment and follow a Japanese example. In Japan, apparently, some companies have rooms where their workers can get rid of pent-up frustration and anger by locking themselves in for a while; screaming, shouting, hitting things and- throwing things about.

But this can only offer temporary relief. Unless we take conscious, political action to abolish this lunatic system, we are going to be faced with more of the same tomorrow, as I will be with the alarm clock.

Torgun Bullen

The Keynesian myth (1966)

From the February 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists have always held that the boom-slump cycle and periodical unemployment are inherent features of the system of production for the market with a view to profit i.e. capitalism. But, say the critics, there has been full employment in Britain for over 20 years; there has been no slump on the scale of the 1930's. Man, they say, has been proved wrong. Capitalism has changed, thanks to the theories and policies of John Maynard Keynes.

Keynes was a British economist who died just after the last war. He wrote a number of widely-read books on economic and political matters and held various government posts. His theories on how to get full employment and avoid slumps are to be found in his General Theory of Unemployment, Interest and Money which appeared in 1936.

The economic doctrines Keynes attacked in this book taught that capitalism automatically led to the full and most efficient use of productive resources. These doctrines said that unemployment was to be explained either by overpopulation or by restrictions on production and trade, such as trade unions. State interference and tariffs. Overproduction was impossible as "supply creates its own demand". This last dogma was known as Say's Law after a French economist of the early 19th century. Say argued that as every sale was a purchase and vice versa a shortage of purchasing power was impossible.

Keynes denied that laissez-faire capitalism automatically led to full employment and went on to show how overproduction and unemployment could occur: since all that was produced in a given period wasn’t all consumed in that period there was a gap between productive capacity and what Keynes called Consumption. This gap was filled by the making of means of production or Investment. However as Investment depends on what businessmen think are the chances of making profits there is no guarantee that this gap will be filled. And if it is not filled then there will be idle resources and unemployment.

Keynes suggested ways of overcoming this condition. The State should first try to encourage Consumption and Investment. As the poor tend to spend a larger proportion of their income than the rich, one way of encouraging spending, Keynes suggested, was to redistribute some of the income of the rich to the poor. Low interest rates might encourage businessmen to invest so a policy of reducing the price of money by increasing its supply was called for. Keynes believed that although these measures were useful they would not be enough. In the end the State itself would have to increase its own spending and even take steps to control Investment directly.

In overthrowing Say's Law, Keynes was doing nothing new. Marx had done this before when he pointed out that, although Say was right about every sale being a purchase because the buyer and seller were different people, the seller could interrupt circulation if for any reason he didn't re-spend the money immediately. Thus both Marx and Keynes showed how overproduction was possible under capitalism. Marx went further and showed how it was also inescapable.

The basic proposition of the Keynesians comes to this: steady growth at full employment level can be kept if the State controls spending and investment so that when a boom is developing it cuts down, and when a slump threatens it increases its spending.

Keynes had been a critic of laissez-faire for a long time before he wrote his General Theory. He was a member of the Liberal Party and sympathetic to the kind of State capitalist schemes the Fabians pushed. When he wrote this book he already had an international reputation as a leading economist. His book was given wide publicity because in it a well-known economist provided a theoretical justification for policies already being tried in the 1930's. Keynes's theories and policies—equalizing taxation, cheap money. State control—were eagerly spread by the Labour Party and "progressives’' generally. After all, this was what they—and Keynes himself, for that matter—had long been advocating. Helped by these partisans Keynesian economics has become the dominant theory. In Britain it completely conquered the universities and government departments. In America some conservative economists are still fighting a rearguard action on behalf of laissez-faire against Keynes' theories which they see as State Capitalism (to them "socialism").

It is true that Keynesian economics is a theory of State Capitalism. It is a theory that Capitalism can be managed by professional economists from Government departments. It is Fabianism in a new guise: capitalism run by "experts".

In Britain the first Keynesian budget was that of 1940 so the "experts" have been in charge for over 25 years How have they fared? Have they been able to control capitalism?

Under capitalism the market is the king; it decides what is produced and when. After the last war there was an expansion of the world market which, with a few minor upsets, has continued ever since. It is this expansion of the world market rather than State control which has been the major factor in the relatively full employment in some parts of the world.

This particular combination of circumstances has allowed the Keynesians to claim as the benefits of their “economic management" what in fact are the results of world market conditions favourable to the capitalists of the countries concerned. The world market has not expanded at a steady rate; it has done so in fits and jerks. This, of course, is the boom-slump cycle. In Britain the figures of unemployment, industrial production and trade have gone up and down with the world market—and the "experts" have been unable to do anything about it. Indeed far from these “experts" controlling capitalism it is the other way round: the Keynesians seated in their government offices have had to take orders from the world market. Given a contraction of the world market on a large-sale the emptiness of the claims of the Keynesians to control capitalism. and especially its boom-slump cycle, would become apparent immediately.

Nor have the "experts" been able to end unemployment. In many parts of the world unemployment is widespread, in the Caribbean and Mediterranean areas to mention just two. Keynesians have been unable to do anything about this. Some of their thinkers have admitted this and call the unemployment in these areas "Marxian" as opposed to the “Keynesian" unemployment they an cure. Very clever! as if this unemployment wasn’t connected with the relatively full employment elsewhere. For these unemployed are the reserve army of labour Marx talked about. They are drawn on by industries in the dominant capitalist countries as and when required to produce for the world market.

Keynesian economics—a combination of a policy of “inflation" and the rule of economic "experts"—is not at all what it is made out to be. It has not, and cannot, control capitalism in the ways that it claims.

Adam Buick

Sting in the Tail: Class contempt (1997)

The Sting in the Tail Column from the January 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Class contempt

Nigel Dempster’s column in the Daily Mail (23 October) carried an uplifting little item that shows the owning class are not all money mad. It was feared that there would be a dispute in the family of Lord White of Hull when it was discovered that he had left an additional £2.6 million without a will.

Everyone behaved beautifully and there was no undignified squabbling. The lack of litigation over the £2.6 million could be explained by the earlier settlements:

“Widow Victoria, who celebrated her 34th birthday last week, inherited around £17 million, his daughters Caroline and Sita were left £3.5 million each after being given homes in Los Angeles valued at £700,000 and son Lucas, 22, who is heading for tax exile in Bermuda, is the main beneficiary of the £70 million estate. ”

Readers will be relieved to know that the additional cash will go to his son. He’ll need it too, as he apparently spends around £500,000 per year on his polo expenses.

That the capitalist press can print such obscenities, shows in what contempt they hold the working class, who of course produce all these immense fortunes.

The golden years?

Last month we reported the shocking treatment of elderly workers, but the situation is even worse than we thought.

In the Observer (3 November) Ginny Jenkins, director of the charity, Action on Elderly Abuse, says:

“This month and every month at least 100,000 old people will be physically abused. And these will be people living in their own homes. Patients, visitors and staff can be reluctant to report abuse. Patients may feel that complaining will make matters worse, or be too confused to complain. Relatives might fear being handed back the complainant. And staff may think they could lose their jobs. ”

The report details a catalogue of horror stories—rape, sexual abuse and neglect at home and in nursing homes.

When you are young and fit you produce surplus value for your master. When you are old and infirm you are the subject of neglect and abuse. In the treatment of the elderly, capitalism must be the worst system ever devised.

His master’s voice

James McKillop writing on the arms trade in the Herald (19 November) both illustrated his awareness of the horrors of capitalism and his misunderstanding about the government’s role in the arms trade:

“They are the merchants of death. Like vultures they hover around the world’s trouble spots, intent on making a quick buck out of human misery and genocide. They have no ethics other than those of the market force that decrees wherever there is a demand, a ready supply can be guaranteed. ”

We could not have put it better, but his indignation is somewhat marred by this naive statement:

“In the wake of the Scott report into the arms to Iraq scandal, the government has tried to get its act together. In preparing for fresh legislation it has issued a consultative document in which it has asked the advice of (would you believe it?) those involved in the arms trade. ”

Yes, we believe it. The arms trade is worth £5 billion per year to the British capitalist class. Why shouldn’t their spokesmen and legislators in government consult their masters?

The blind wordspinner

In the Independent on Sunday (27 October) the journalist Colin Tudge wrote a long article called “If the Pope can find Darwin why can’t Dawkins find God?” It was a typical piece of ill- informed journalism; long on rhetoric and short on sense.

After discussing the stupidities and horrors of religion from the Inquisition to the role of Islam in present-day Afghanistan, he makes the following ludicrous claim:

“But despite its past enormities and its present absurdities, religion is necessary, and the task is not to obliterate religion but to devise one appropriate to our age. ”

Tudge is really annoyed at Professor Richard Dawkins, author of The Blind Watchmaker, for his attacks on religious beliefs. He accuses him of “the Goebbels-esque response of some scientists who reach for their revolvers when they hear the word ‘religion’”.

In fact, Dawkins in his books and lectures when discussing religious notions contrasts them with verifiable, logical data. When it comes to “reaching for revolvers” the religious of this world have a much more trigger-happy record than professors of zoology.

Magic moments

Sometimes the capitalist class get really desperate. But we doubt if any British company has yet plumbed the depth of one Chinese factory. According to the Independent (4 July) and quoted in the December issue of Fortean Times things must have got really desperate in Guandong:

“The Longwan cement factory in Guandong province, China, ordered the entire workforce to attend a ceremony where a witch and a sorcerer sacrificed a dog in an attempt to restore profitability to the plant which lost 8m yuan (over £600,000) last year. ” 

Alas, the magicians had little more success than the teams of management consultants called in to work their voodoo for British firms in similar circumstances:

“Workers and management went down on their bended knees to ask for divine assistance, but shortly after the ceremony a power generator at the factory burnt out. ”

No doubt the witch and the sorcerer deservedly got their marching orders. Pity about the dog though. 

Some states good; some states bad (1996)

From the December 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Debate Between Socialist Party and Tories 'Is Britain Worth Dying for?'

Halloween was a suitably grim evening for a debate at Cardiff University between the Socialist Party and the prospective Tory candidate for Cardiff Central, David Melding, on the topic: “Is Britain Worth Dying For?”

As an exposition of how the economic conflicts of capitalism and the boss class are the true cause of war and death on an ever-increasing scale and of the socialist alternative to this sick system, even this was extremely useful. The fact that when the ruling class and governments of rival territories fall out over markets, raw materials, trade routes and the like and can’t or won’t compromise, it is the working class who are marched off to kill each other in their own oppressors’ interests was once again held up for all to see. This debate led to important related issues rising to the surface.

One was the idea put forward by our Conservative opponent that some states are worth dying for (today’s Britain, of course!) and some aren’t (Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia). This “good state-bad state” argument missed the point that all states are more or less oppressive The state will always protect the interest of the ruling class who control it against working-class interests. States are as oppressive as their controllers feel they need to be. This can even be seen in “liberal” Britain, for example during the last great miners’ strike, when state violence was openly used to smash workers’ resistance. There are no “good” states because the state is a creation that is set up and maintained by the rulers, against the ruled. Needless to say, in socialism the state would not and could not exist in any form.

What was also brought out was the sheer human tragedy caused when states and the ruling class unleash their killing machines. That is, people from one part of the world are expected to kill people from another, whom they have never met. These people will be much like themselves, their families, and friends. That this sick idea is seen as normal and acceptable by all the parties of capitalism, “left” and “right”, shows just what a bloody and anti-human system we are slaving under.

No government, however, will admit that such institutionalised mass murder is carried out in the name of profit, but then who would expect anything like the truth from any politician? Wars always falsely dressed up as clashes of ideology or “good against evil”, which brings us back to the Cardiff Tory’s claim that some states are somehow “morally” superior to others and thus represent something it is worth dying (and killing) for.

This view of the world (faithfully upheld by the media) would have us believe that the Gulf War was about defending Kuwait and Saudi Arabia’s fantastic “democracy” and “freedom” from the Forces of Evil (armed previously by Britain and the US, among others) rather than a punch-up over oil resources. It would also have us imagine the Second World Slaughter was a battle for liberty. That World War Two ended with the delivery of millions of East Europeans into the clutches of the red fascists of Soviet Russia shows just how interested the great powers really were in “freedom” and “democracy”.

Wars are always fought over the economic and strategic interests of the various sections of the world’s ruling class. Fighting our brothers and sisters from other “countries” is totally against our interests as members of the working class; our rulers’ quarrels are not worth one drop of blood.

As for the millions who have been pointlessly slaughtered in wars and the millions who are dying now, the best way we can remember them is to get rid of the capitalist system that killed them and will keep on killing and replace it with world socialism, where the nightmares of wars, states, money and oppression will, at long last, have disappeared forever.

Ben Malcolm

New Zealand Elections (1996)

From the December 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

The World Socialist Party (New Zealand) put up a candidate in the Wairarapa Electorate for the first time. It is not a big constituency in terms of the number of voters but it is spread over a very large areas. The WSP candidate obtained 27 votes. The area is a farming district and very rural. Wairarapa is located in the south-east of New Zealand’s North Island. Wairarapa is bordered by the rugged Tararua Ranges to the west, and the wild Pacific Ocean to the east. New Zealand’s first planned inland town was built in the Wairarapa at Greytown followed a few weeks later by Masterton. The electorate carried on past North Wairarapa from Mauriceville, Eketahuna right up to Dannivirke and Norsewood in Southern Hawke’s Bay, where early Scandinavian settlers established communities in the early 1870s.

To the majority of voters this would be the first time they had heard of the World Socialism Movement With a campaign budget of $2500, ten thousand election leaflets were produced and delivered by hand to households predominantly in Masterton and the smaller towns south of it In addition advertisements were placed respectively in the two community papers that cover the electorate over four weeks. The candidate spoke at four public meetings and one organised by the education sector.

Media coverage from the daily newspapers was small, a mere two to three sentences, or we were simply excluded and denied the opportunity to express and present our view alongside the other political parties. This was particularly the case with the Wairarapa Times-Age based in Masterton. Only after a protest did they place a small piece on the front page on the eve of the election. Too small and too late. As yet we have not received a reply to our letter asking why we were excluded from putting our case across alongside the six main parties.

The votes cast for the World Socialist Party candidate spread over all the electorate and showed that some workers at least were looking beyond capitalism, it is hoped that these voters will now wish to be involved in the serious struggle for world socialism. 

Don't mourn Deng Xiaoping (1997)

From the April 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Deng Xiaoping, the behind-the-scenes boss of Chinese capitalism, died on 19 February at the ripe old age of 93. He had an eventful life, on a political roller-coaster that saw him ejected from government in disgrace more than once but enabled him to live out his last decade as a wielder of unofficial but still supreme power. He had long enjoyed all the benefits of ruling-class membership, such as access to the best health-care that he didn't need to buy, and flying his cronies in for games of bridge, a privilege unavailable to most workers in China or anywhere else.

Deng will be remembered as not just one of the most cunning of political survivors, but also as the architect of China's market reforms and as one of those behind the bloody suppression of the popular movements of 1989. His best-known remark, mercilessly lampooned by his opponents, was "It doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice." The implication was that political purity was less important than efficiency or effectiveness. This so-called pragmatism came to the fore after 1979, when Deng's government opened the Chinese economy to market forces and overseas investment. The new policy was, in effect, that the cat's colour didn't matter as long as it made a profit. This was not a result of Deng's own preferences as much as a question of fitting in with the needs of Chinese capitalism, which is well-placed to undercut wage costs in more developed countries and so make big money for Chinese capitalists (the new private owners as well as the state bureaucrats) and overseas shareholders. It is fitting that Deng's death should be marked by profiteering from tasteless mementoes of him.

This privatisation policy had disastrous effects on workers. Inflation, reduction of subsidies on food and travel costs, and an increase in unemployment and job insecurity meant a more anxious existence for millions. It was particularly galling that many people were obviously benefitting from the new policies, and that this was often due to nepotism and favouritism. Deng's own family prospered from his eminence and influence. Resentment at corruption and the lack of democratic politics led to the mass uprisings of 1989, when workers across China showed their opposition and demanded better treatment. Though media attention focused on the students in Tiananmen Square, this was only a small part of the resistance. The crackdown when it came, vicious and bloody as it was, was also not confined to Beijing and Tiananmen. Deng was one of the motive forces behind the repression, his earlier reputation for flexibility shattered by the guns and tanks of the Chinese army.

Deng's death will no doubt be followed by a power struggle, as those at the top of the "Communist" Party vie to maintain and improve their positions the policy of political dictatorship allied with greater appeal to market forces is likely to continue for a while at least, as the rich and powerful do very nicely from the present system; it may well be boosted by the imminent take-over of Hong King, with all its financial pickings. Workers in China will go on suffering, as before. No member of any ruling class deserves to be mourned by workers, least of all a tyrant such as Deng Xiaoping.

Paul Bennett

Editorial: The Interesting Case of Peter Fryer (1956)

Editorial from the December 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Fryer is the Communist journalist who was sent by the Daily Worker to Budapest to report what was going on. Now Mr. Fryer has resigned from the Daily Worker (but not from the Communist Party) because he discovered that h was sent there not to report what he saw, but to cover up for the Russian Government. He sent three despatches and he subsequently told Mr. Colin Lawson, a Daily Express correspondent, whom he met in Budapest, what happened to them. (Published as an interview in Daily Express, 17th November).

The first despatch ("a straightforward account of what I had seen as soon as I arrived . . . on the night of October 20th,") was not used at all. The second despatch was an interview between Fryer and another Communist. Mr. Coutts. who had been in Budapest for three years as Editor of World Youth. This despatch "was cut, and cut ruthlessly," for the first edition of the Daily Worker. Members of the staff protested, and some of the cuts were restored in a later edition.

The third despatch was not published at all. It was suppressed by the Editor, J. R. Campbell, "who had that day returned from Moscow." He not only suppressed it, but "refused to let other members of the staff read it."

The Daily Worker never admits that it is under Communist control. It claims that it is the only paper "owned by its readers," but Mr. Fryer discloses that while Campbell was away in Moscow his "stand in" was Mr. George Matthews, assistant secretary of the Communist Party (It was he who cut the second despatch).

Mr. Fryer, in the interview with Colin Lawson, expressed the following views:

"I take the view that the Soviet action in Hungary was a crime and a tragic blunder, both from the Soviet point of view and from the point of view of the whole international working class."

He denies the Communist Party argument that the Hungarian workers backed the Russian action.

"If the Soviet intervention was necessary to put down counter-revolution, how is it to be explained that some of the fiercest resistance of all was in the working-class districts of Ujpest and Csepel?"

(Incidentally, as late as 17th November, the Daily Worker was still reporting broadcast appeals by the new Hungarian government to the workers to end their strike, aimed, as the Worker admits, to enforce "the reinstatement of Mr. Nagy, the former Premier, and the withdrawal of Soviet troops.")

One last quotation from Mr. Fryer:

"I should say that the rising against what I would describe as the so-called Communist government of Hungary was supported by 99 per cent. of the people, including a great number of the ordinary honest rank and file members of the Communist Party. Nobody wanted the Russians to stay. Nobody wanted the secret police. They were sick and tired of both of them."

Caught in the Act: Goodbye To All That (1991)

The Caught in the Act Column from the March 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tory hopefuls will have felt their pulse quicken at the news that many of the parliamentary storm troopers of the Thatcher revolution will not be storming after the next general election. The list of ex-ministers who will not be standing again reads like a Thatcher cabinet - Geoffrey Howe, Nigel Lawson, Norman Tebbit, Cecil Parkinson, John Moore, Nicholas Ridley. It is even rumoured that Thatcher herself will soon announce her retreat from the battle for the triumph of market forces over soggy concepts such as social welfare. A tot of plum seats, with fat Tory majorities, will be looking for candidates.

This situation is given extra piquancy by the fact that many of the retiring ex-ministers were themselves once considered as future prime ministers. Howe’s claim to fame was that he spear-headed the drive to cut back government spending and establish the policy that any business which couldn't make a profit was thereby not worth saving with state money. Lawson was the yuppies' favourite Chancellor and in his heyday encouraged the illusion that through his budgets the British people were reaping the harvest of prosperity from the seed sown by the unglamourous, dogged Howe. Sadly for Lawson, he did not time his resignation so that his reputation remained intact. The chaos of capitalism was too much for even a smarty like him, reducing him to taking a few part time jobs in the City bringing in the odd £30,000 or so a year.

Morals

As recently as last November Tebbit was threatening to contest the premiership (and it would have taken some very brave men in grey suits to deter him) but in the end he deferred to Major. Perhaps he was hoping for a return to prime ministerial favour; in the event he showed what he thought of Major’s declared intention to fashion a more "caring" government by deciding that he needed to spend more time with his wife.

Cecil Parkinson paid the penalty for being one of Thatcher’s blue-eyed - at one time, indeed, the bluest of eyed-boys. Tory aspirants to the leadership must have watched, in impotent despair, Parkinson’s apparent inability to do anything wrong in Thatcher's eyes. He had, however, done wrong in the eyes of Sara Keays and no patronage could save him from the repercussions of this exposure of how Tory gentlemen behave when it suits them. After all, Tory moralists like to tell us that morals are, like Major's Britain, classless; they did not thank Parkinson for showing that they are supposed to apply only to the working class. When he eventually came back to office Parkinson seemed to have lost his touch; the past master of deception made a series of public relations blunders which were intended as shrewd, voter-attractive ruses - which did not amuse his anxious colleagues.

Another Thatcher favourite to plummet to obscurity was John Moore, who was once the subject of an enormous publicity exercise to convince us that he was an unusually capable administrator of capitalism's affairs. Moore basked happily in this praise and in Thatcher's admiration for his talents for assaulting working class living standards. It did not seem to occur to him, that so blatant a campaign carried its own menace. When events exposed him as a very ordinary sort of political blunderer there were no men in grey suits to save him from an especially humiliating demotion. He did make one last effort to claw his way back into favour by issuing what was supposed to be a serious analysis of the deeper levels of poverty in such a way as to suggest that it was all a product of over-excited imaginations. This latest blunder met with the contempt and derision it deserved and to no one’s regret - certainly not that of the very poor - Moore disappeared from the ministerial scene.

NIMBY

Nicholas Ridley for prime minister was a prospect supported by only a few of the stranger fanatics. Ridley has always conducted himself with all the arrogance and contempt of someone who has inherited a lot of money. As much of the wealth of this old Etonian’s family came from the exploitation of coal miners he was well qualified to help formulate the government's strategy against the miners during the early 1980s, which reached its ultimate triumph in the defeat of the 1984/5 strike and the subsequent run-down of the industry. On all this Ridley looked with a pitiless eye; this is, after all, capitalism under which wealth is produced, not so that people can hold jobs but for sale at a profit. He had a similar attitude to anyone who objected to what are politely called developments - factories, motorways, runways and the like which threaten to blight their living conditions - sneering at them as NIMBYS - one of those fashionable acronyms, for Not In My Back Yard.

It is not clear whether Ridley regarded himself as a NIMBY when he used his influence to obstruct the building of some houses which would have affected the view from his elegant, costly country home. The incident confirmed what was already known - that Ridley has an uncomplicated view of the world: capitalism is a class divided society in which he is in the right - the superior - class and he will take good care to assert his privileges and to defend them at whatever cost to others. It was a typical indiscretion about European unity which forced his reluctant resignation from the government; events had overtaken someone who did his best to live in the past.

So now we have a new set of politicians in charge, who claim they are inspired by fresh principles, new priorities and more humane ambitions. This change is personified by the greyer, lower-key manner of John Major. Perhaps there will be some minor and insignificant changes: Thatcher's stridency and obstinacy, and the sycophnacy of her cronies, were becoming so laughable that they were losing votes. And that is what it was - and is - all about.

Ivan